Q&As

Stout heart, readers: There is some direct marketing commentary in the second half of today’s column. I review a Web site that creates a rich online experience around a fairly mundane offering — men’s haircuts.

Before we get to that, an update: I was down in New Orleans this past weekend, attempting to eat my weight in chicken-and-sausage gumbo. But I also revisited a few folks I wrote about a year ago during my coverage of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans ((Loose Cannon: Here is New Orleans
and related stories).

Industrial apparel marketer Duluth Trading Co. has launched

A U.S. judge has refused to dismiss a long-standing suit against Google’s use of trademarked terms as keyword triggers for delivering pay-per-click ads in search results.

Unilever, the maker of the male grooming brand Axe, is rolling out new packaging and improved fragrances for the brand this month in an effort to keep up interest for its core market.

Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Home Entertainment are sparking buzz around the DVD release of “Night at the Museum”, bringing a piece of the film to life.

Lunchmeat marketer Carl Buddig & Co. breaks an on-pack promotion this week that will give away 15 million song downloads.

The Milk Mustache folks are looking below the lips with a school-based contest to find the healthiest “student bodies.”

(Direct) Channel conflict can be a huge stumbling block on the way to b-to-b integrated marketing success. Here are some tactics that might help you avoid conflicts:

(Multichannel Merchant) Contacting customers with a direct mail piece, such as a catalog, requires data processing. Data processing can be as simple as 1) deciding that you want to mail anyone who made a purchase from your company in 2006;

The Wisconsin Cheeseman catalog has been sold by the Cremer family to an eight-member group of investors led by a Milwaukee native with 26 years of experience in the food industry, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.